Word Origin & History

intense c.1400, from M.Fr. intense, from L. intensus "stretched, strained, tight," originally pp. of intendere "to stretch out, strain" (see intend); thus, literally, "high-strung." Intensity formed in Eng. 1665 (earlier was intenseness, 1614); sense of "extreme depth of feeling" first recorded 1830. Intensify (1817) was first used by Coleridge, in place of intend, which was no longer felt as connected with intense.

Example Sentences for intensely

His reproductions of that talk are often intensely realistic.

Do they meet the requirements of this intensely practical age?

Intensely she looked her misery in the face; and it was as a voice that said, "No sun: never sun any more," to her.

"We ought each to have a flag of our own," said Geraldine, who was intensely patriotic.

It is true that we are little concerned with the character of the speaker, and the feeling is intensely lyric and universal.

How intensely interesting it would be to take a census of vices.

And Barres, now intensely curious, walked eastward once more, following all three.

Denis Ryan, excited and intensely moved, shouted with the rest.

"I intensely dislike both his manners and his opinions—and what I hear of his character," she observed.